Archives for June 9, 2011

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

BROADWAY:

• Anything Goes (musical, G/PG-13, mildly adult subject matter that will be unintelligible to children, closes Jan. 8, reviewed here)

• Born Yesterday (comedy, G/PG-13, closes July 31, reviewed here)

• The House of Blue Leaves (serious comedy, PG-13, closes July 23, reviewed here)

• How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (musical, G/PG-13, perfectly fine for children whose parents aren’t actively prudish, reviewed here)

• The Motherf**ker with the Hat (serious comedy, R, adult subject matter, closes July 17, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

• Avenue Q (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)

• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)

• Play Dead (theatrical spook show, PG-13, utterly unsuitable for easily frightened children or adults, reviewed here)

IN CHICAGO:

• The Front Page (comedy, PG-13, extended through July 17, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON ON BROADWAY:

• The Importance of Being Earnest (high comedy, G, just possible for very smart children, closes July 3, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN CHICAGO:

• Porgy and Bess (operatic musical, PG-13, extended through July 3, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN WASHINGTON, D.C.:

• Follies (musical, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes June 19, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY OFF BROADWAY:

• By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (comedy, PG-13, reviewed here)

• A Minister’s Wife (serious musical, G, far too complicated for children, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY ON BROADWAY:

• Million Dollar Quartet (jukebox musical, G, reviewed here, reopening off Broadway in July)

“I don’t quite understand myself how, why, or when technology and the technical aspects of filmmaking completely overran, overcame, overwhelmed the human, the emotional, the intellectual, the real. Was it when kids first started bringing pocket calculators to school with them? They would have been more or less the first film school generation. So there came to be filmmakers who were somehow excited by Kurosawa, but not by the Western Canon that excited him–Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky–and who thought Godard’s jump-cuts were sexy, but could no more discuss his interest in Nicholas Ray or the dialectics of Marxism than they could fly to Mars, filmmakers who can imitate Hitchcock’s technique, but are incapable of emulating his emotional or narrative complexity. Writers, directors, actors, even when relatively young, once seemed mature. Somewhere along the line, quite recently, that changed. Now, no matter what their age, they’re immature, and the films reflect that. The obsession with technology appears to have accelerated this process of infantilism and occluded all else.”
Lem Dobbs, interview with Dan Schneider (Cosmoetica, January 25, 2009)